These were words that normally would shake the Nets to attention. Dwight Howard, in a magazine interview, sounded frustrated with Orlando when he said, “I just don’t know what else I can do.”

Again, this was Dwight Howard, the perfect partner for Deron Williams.

“There’s more you can do in a bigger place. I’m stuck in a tough position because I feel like right now, where I’m at, I’ve done so much. And I just don’t know what else I can do. I can’t live for everybody else. I don’t know what decision I’m gonna make as of right now. It’s been crazy. Everybody wants me to come here, come play here, come to our team, do this,” Howard told Esquire magazine.

“I love the people in [Orlando] . . . I just think about what’s going to be best for what I want to accomplish in my life. And I don’t want that door to close on me, wherever that door is. I don’t want it to close.”

But with the ongoing NBA labor war, no one knows where the door will open for Howard. So the most important piece of business for the Nets — as it has been — will be keeping Williams.

CC Sabathia isn’t the only mega opt-out issue in the area. After the season, or what may pass for a season — and again, who knows what a new labor deal will mean — Williams can opt out of the final year of a deal that would pay $17.779 million.

The first reaction is he would be a loon to do that because with a new labor agreement, he is likely to get way less. But if not, the Nets’ headaches begin.

The Nets wanted to fashion a team this summer that could compete and appeal to Williams. They won 24 games last season.

Williams, the only high-profile player to have gone overseas (Turkey) during the lockout, said all the right things after the season about the franchise moving in the right direction (and recently he signed to put his blog from Turkey on ESPN New York, showing another tie to the area).

The lockout, though, killed additional movement. The longer it goes, the more it hurts the blueprint to keep Williams, who also stressed the need for personnel upgrades.

The Nets wanted to make the upgrades, but the labor strife stalled everything. Certainly, they must take a competitive team into Brooklyn for 2012-13. New buildings attract fans. But the novelty dies if the product stinks. Witness Citi Field.

But to this point, the Nets have seen themselves with Williams and vice versa.

“I like this organization a lot. I like the direction they’re going,” Williams said on breakup day. “I definitely can see myself staying here.”